HTC’s new headset has leaked and it’ll make you look like a bug

A leaked marketing image of the unannounced HTC Vive Flow VR headset. | Image: Evan Blass on Twitter

On Monday, I wrote about leaked details of an unannounced HTC Vive Flow VR headset that’s expected to be announced at an event on Thursday. Just one day later, we now know what it looks like thanks to images shared by prolific leaker Evan Blass, who has been actively posting new photos over the course of the evening.

Here’s the first batch:

Miss me, @HTC? pic.twitter.com/hB7iPLLCHk

— E (@evleaks) October 12, 2021

Overall, the images in Blass’ first tweet match many of the details reported by _Protocol_on Monday, but they give a much better idea of what the final device may look like. (And I’m just going to say it: the leaked promo kind of makes the wearers look like bugs.) It’s hard to tell if the big yellowish spots on the front of...

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Coinbase is adding a way to showcase NFTs later this year

Image: Coinbase

Coinbase announced Monday that it plans to sell, trade, and mint NFTs in an expansion from the marketplace’s cryptocurrency-based roots. Details on how “Coinbase NFT” will do all of that are slim, but the company sees an opportunity. “Just as Coinbase helped millions of people access bitcoin for the first time in an easy and trusted way — we want to do the same for the NFTs,” Coinbase vice president of product Sanchan Saxena writes.

The big idea seems to be social engagement. Coinbase wants to “curate your personal feed” of NFTs and display the NFTs you own on your profile so you can make connections with like-minded fans of digital cats, punks, apes, and beyond.

At launch, Coinbase NFT “will support Ethereum based ERC-721 and ERC-1155...

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Charter asks ex-customers to resubscribe or risk their credit scores

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Charter has been telling former customers that it’ll forgive their debts and stop reporting them to credit agencies if they resubscribe to the company’s Spectrum TV, internet, or voice service, according to a story from the_Los Angeles Times_. The “one-time courtesy” offer came to light after Steve Schklair, who says he hasn’t been a Spectrum customer for years and doesn’t owe the company money, shared a letter describing the supposed deal with the_LA Times._Charter later confirmed the letter was authentic, saying that it was an offer that was meant to help consumers “reconnect” to Spectrum, as well as get a leg up on their finances.

According to the LA Times, the letter Charter sent Schklair said the company would cancel his (supposed)...

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Vudu brings its TV and movie streaming app to Facebook’s Oculus VR devices

Image: Vudu

Vudu’s freemium streaming app is now supported on Facebook’s Oculus Quest 1 and Quest 2 VR devices, with a spokesperson telling The Verge more than a hundred 3D titles are available to buy or rent.

The Fandango-owned streaming service — which was purchased from Walmart last year — supports both free, ad-supported movies and TV, as well as rentals and purchases. In addition to the 100-plus titles available on Vudu in 3D, the service additionally offers more than 200,000 titles to rent or buy to stream on other devices, as well as thousands of ad-supported titles. It’s the first time that the app is supported on VR devices, a spokesperson told The Verge.

“We’re thrilled to be working with Oculus to help transport fans to new worlds in the...

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FDA authorizes first e-cigarette but only allows tobacco flavors

After rejecting over one million e-cigarette related products, the Food and Drug Administration announced today that it authorized its first e-cigarette: the Vuse Solo, made by R.J. Reynolds Vapor Company. The agency is allowing the company’s tobacco-flavored e-liquid pods on the market but rejected its flavored pods.

It’s been over a month since the FDA’s deadline for its review of vapes and e-cigarettes. Early September marked the end of a yearlong period where companies were allowed to keep selling their products, even though agency regulations said that any new tobacco products need authorization before they can be marketed. Now, anything soldwithout authorization is being marketed illegally.

Companies submitted applications for...

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Apple reportedly can’t get enough chips for the iPhone 13

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge

The chip shortage is hitting the iPhone 13, with Apple reportedly unable to get enough parts to hit its planned manufacturing goals, according to a report from Bloomberg. Apple had originally planned to produce 90 million iPhones in the final months of 2021, but it’s reportedly slashing that number by 10 million (or around 11 percent) due to supply issues with chips from Broadcom and Texas Instruments.

While the primary A15 Bionic SoC on the iPhone 13 and iPhone 13 Pro is manufactured by TSMC, there are plenty of other chip-based components inside the phone that come from other sources. As iFixit’s thorough teardown of the iPhone 13 Pro’s logic board shows, Texas Instruments and Broadcom are responsible for several key components,...

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Listen to our Windows 11 and Microsoft Surface roundtable

Photo by Becca Farsace / The Verge

On Tuesdays for the remainder of the year, The Verge’s flagship podcast The Vergecast will be featuring additional new episodes, with each focused on a specific topic usually discussed on our regular Friday shows.

Today, we start our run with a discussion on the reviews we haven’t talked too much about yet on the show: this year’s software and hardware endeavors from Microsoft. In this episode, Dieter hosts a roundtable on reviews for the Microsoft products launched this fall: Windows 11, Surface Pro 8, Surface Laptop Studio, and Surface Go 3.

Dieter is joined by _Verge_reviewers Tom Warren, Monica Chin, and Dan Seifert, who have all reviewed the products, respectively.

The show answers questions like: Why does Windows 11 feel...

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Facebook has banned nearly 1,000 ‘militarized social movements,’ documents reveal

Photo by JEFF DEAN/AFP via Getty Images

Facebook has placed at least 986 groups on a private list of banned “militarized social movements,” according to internal Facebook documents published by The Intercept_._The documents hint at the scale of militia organizing on Facebook — something the company cracked down on in August of 2020.

Militarized social movements are one part of Facebook’s larger “dangerous individuals and organizations” list, which The Interceptpublished a snapshot of in its entirety. The term refers to armed groups that promote armed conflict, as well as groups that support violence or looting at protests; in practice, it’s apparently composed largely of right-wing militias with some left-wing, anarchist, or generally anti-government organizations.

“This is an...

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1Password will now let you share passwords with just a link

Image: 1Password

Password manager 1Password is making it easier to share passwords with anyone, with Psst! (password secure sharing tool), a new link sharing feature the company is releasing today. Instead of using 1Password’s pre-existing sharing options, which require an account, or just copying and pasting log-in information, which is inherently insecure, Psst! makes sharing a password a bit more like sharing a Google Doc with someone.

You can create a link to share password credentials, set when it expires (when the first person views it, or at one hour, one day, one week, 14 days, or 30 days), and share the password with specific people (via their emails) or for anyone with the link. The whole process is a lot like sharing a link to a Google Drive...

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Twitter testing an easier way to switch to your reverse-chronological feed

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

Twitter is testing a new way to switch to your reverse-chronological feed a bit more easily, the company announced Tuesday. Right now, when you tap the three-star icon at the top of your feed to switch between the Home feed (which sorts tweets for you) or the Latest feed (which shows them in reverse chronological order), a small menu shows up that prompts you to switch to whichever feed you’re not on. For some users on iOS, though, when you tap the three-star icon, Twitter is testing new Home or Latest tabs at the top of your screen instead.

Here’s what the change will look like, according to Twitter. If you’ve pinned lists, the tabs should look familiar:

Top Tweets first or latest Tweets first? We’re making it easier to switch between...

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Epic finally admits that its Imposters mode was ‘inspired’ by Among Us

Image: Epic

Fortnite’s Imposter mode is an Among Us clone in all but name, but nearly two months later, Epic Games is finally acknowledging in today’s patch notes what was clear from the start: Imposters was “inspired by Among Us from Innersloth.”

Imposters launched in August, set in Fortnite’s canon and 3D worlds but borrowing heavily from Among Us’ gameplay, mechanics, and even terminology (like the “Imposters” name itself). At the time, Epic didn’t credit Among Us or Innersloth, leading members of Innersloth’s team to complain about having their work copied without credit or the chance to collaborate.

As Innersloth co-founder Marcus Bromander noted at the time, the company didn’t patent the Among Us mechanics, but he lamented Epic’s lack of...

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NASA’s massive next-generation space telescope arrives in South America ahead of launch

JWST undergoing testing at Northrop Grumman earlier this year | Image: Northrop Grumman

After more than two decades of delays and ballooning development costs, NASA’s next-generation space observatory, the James Webb Space Telescope, has arrived in French Guiana, South America — the site of the spacecraft’s planned launch later this year. Its arrival sparks the beginning of weeks of final preparations before the telescope is loaded on the top of its rocket for flight.

The James Webb Space Telescope, or JWST, spent 16 days at sea, packed inside an environmentally controlled, custom-built shipping container aboard a French cargo ship. The vessel transported the spacecraft from Redondo Beach, California, the site of the telescope’s primary contractor, Northrup Grumman. JWST had been at Northrop since early 2018, where it was...

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Best gaming laptop in 2021: seven laptops to get your game on

The best gaming laptop is the Asus ROG Zephyrus G15. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales/ The Verge

The best gaming laptop at every size and price

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The Daily’s founding producer, Theo Balcomb, is leaving the Times

Photo by Christina Cala

Hello again, and thanks for reading Hot Pod. Today’s an unexpectedly busy one — with a scoop for us to get into. I’ll waste no time!

SCOOP: Theo Balcomb is leavingThe New York Times

Theo Balcomb, the producer and co-creator of _The Daily_who’s widely acknowledged for propelling the show to success, is leaving The New York Times nearly five years after joining. Balcomb will launch her own independent business focused on producing and editing, she confirmed with Hot Pod. Her last day will be October 15th.

A quick summary of Balcomb’s very busy audio life: She started at NPR as an intern and rose the ranks to become the youngest supervising producer on All Things Considered. She joined the Times in 2016 as senior producer for a...

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See how climate change could drown landmarks around the world

Projected future sea level at South of Market (SoMa) in San Francisco, United States due to human-caused global warming under 3 degrees Celsius of global warming. | Image: Climate Central

Just 3 degrees Celsius (5.4 degrees Fahrenheit) of global warming standsbetween Cuba’s Plaza de La Catedral looking typically dry or looking like something straightout of the myth of Atlantis. The iconic plaza in Old Havana is just one of many landmarks that could face a watery grave in the future if greenhouse gas emissions from burning fossil fuels continue unabated.

You can see the potential future for more than 100 coastal cities across 39 countries thanks to a new image gallery and map published today by the nonprofit advocacy group Climate Central. The visualizations compare two scenarios: futuresea level rise with 1.5 degrees Celsius of global warming above preindustrial levels or sea level rise with 3 degrees of warming. As...

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How to transfer your Google Authenticator 2FA to a new phone

Photo by S3studio/Getty Images

Two-factor authentication (2FA) is one of the best and easiest ways to keep your online accounts secure. It works by issuing an authentication code on your phone when somebody tries to access the account; if that person doesn’t have the code, they (or you) don’t get in. By using a 2FA app, such as Google Authenticator or Authy, you can prevent somebody from accessing your data by getting your password. (You can have a code texted to you, but that is considered far less secure due to the rise of so-called SIM hacking.)

There is, of course, a catch. Because 2FA uses a key specific to your phone, if you lose or break your phone, you can’t simply reinstall the app on your new phone and go on from there. You need to transfer the key code for...

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Apple announces October 18th event after months of Mac rumors

Apple October 18th event invitation | Image: Apple

Apple’s next hardware event will take place on October 18th, according to invites it sent out today. The company is widely expected to use its second fall event to launch a pair of new MacBooks, a redesigned higher-end Mac Mini, and possibly a pair of third-generation AirPods.

The invite video teases one word: Unleashed. As seen below in a tweet from Apple marketing exec Greg Joswiak, it appears in a dotted font that could hint at mini LED tech on the way. The “special” event will stream live on Apple.com at 1PM ET / 10AM PT.

There have been reports for months that Apple is on the cusp of releasing new 14- and 16-inch MacBook Pro models. The new MacBooks would be the latest step in Apple’s transition away from Intel chips, replacing...

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Adobe shows off upcoming Camera Raw support for Photoshop on iPad

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge

Adobe is bringing Camera Raw to the iPad version of Photoshop, and has demonstrated how it works in a hands-on video. Ryan Dumlao, senior product manager for Photoshop on iPad, shows how Camera Raw can be used to edit RAW and DNG photos directly imported from a camera — in this case a Fujifilm — or ProRAW files from the iPhone 12 Pro and 13 Pro.

Camera Raw is a long-standing plugin that allows for advanced RAW image editing within Photoshop, and it’s also the technical basis of Lightroom’s processing engine. Dumlao’s video shows how you can edit various settings and exposure parameters within Photoshop, including importing the RAW file as a smart object for non-destructive editing that can be carried over to the desktop version. In his...

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Scream is back, and Ghostface is better at controlling my smart home than my phone

Image: Paramount Pictures

He’s back, and he’s coming for you — through your smart home. As if Ghostface’s reappearance after a decade laying dormant wasn’t scary enough, this time, the nineties-self-aware-slasher-killer knows how to control your door locks. And clearly, smart home manufacturers could learn a thing or two from him (or her). This dude’s got some killer protocols on hand.

The first trailer for Scream dropped today. It’s technically Scream 5, but apparently, we’re ditching numbers when it comes to horror movie re-boots. And it opens in that kitchen with another child star home alone. Disney darling Jenna Ortega steps in for the E.T. wunderkind as “Tara,” and while we need to get past the landline phone in the kitchen (what decade is this?), seeing as...

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DC’s new comic book Superman is coming out as bisexual in next month’s issue

DC’s newest Superman is coming out of the closet next month, with the comics company revealing that Jon Kent will be starting a relationship with Jay Nakamura, a new character introduced earlier this year.

The son of the original Superman (Kal-El / Clark Kent), Jon took over for his father as the “official” Superman in DC’s mainline Superman: Son of Kal-El comic earlier this year as Earth’s most powerful superhero. (For those not caught up, Clark is still around, albeit off dealing with some drama on Warworld in the Action Comics and limited-run Superman and the Authority lines.)

“Everyone needs heroes and everyone deserves to see themselves in their heroes.”

“I knew replacing Clark with another straight white savior could be a real...

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The next big thing in podcasts is talking back

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Poll, Q&As, and comment sections could turn podcasting interactive

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FDA clears Withings’ EKG and blood oxygen features

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

After over a year in limbo, Withings finally has Food and Drug Administration clearance for its ScanWatch, which monitors for abnormal heart rhythms through an EKG feature and flags nighttime breathing issues with its blood oxygen sensor. The watch has been available for sale in Europe, but not in the United States.

This is the first smartwatch to get the FDA’s signoff on both types of health features. Apple, Fitbit, and Samsung all detect blood oxygen levels, but they don’t claim they can detect any medical conditions using that information, so they didn’t need to get the agency’s clearance in order to market the devices. Withings, on the other hand, is claiming that its device can flag nighttime breathing problems through a...

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8BitDo’s very good Pro 2 controller is getting an Xbox version soon

8BitDo

8BitDo is releasing a wired version of its Pro 2 controller for Xbox consoles and PC on December 8th, 2021. It’s nearly identical in terms of features to the Bluetooth wireless model that my colleague Sam Byford reviewed, which supports Switch, mobile, and other platforms. Though, this new Xbox model’s wired-only connection means that it’s cheaper at $44.99. You can preorder it now.

This Pro 2 is clad in black, with an Xbox home button in its middle. Yet, in addition to all of the other Xbox-specific buttons you’re probably expecting (share, menu, view), it has 8BitDo’s other two buttons near the analog sticks, which can be remapped to your liking in its Ultimate Software app available on iOS and Android. Additionally, there are two...

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Hyper says its new USB-C docks can run two displays off an M1 MacBook out of the box

Two display from an M1 MacBook. | Image: Hyper

Hyper claims its new USB-C hubs will address one of the key frustrations with Apple’s M1 MacBooks: their inability to natively power more than one external display at a time. Both Hyper’s $129.99 “HyperDrive Dual 4K HDMI 3-in-1 USB-C Adapter” and its $199.99 “HyperDrive Dual 4K HDMI 10-in-1 USB-C Hub” have two HDMI ports, which it says can output to two 4K monitors without the need for software drivers. They’re both launching today and are available to buy direct from Hyper.

Neither offers a perfect solution. Hyper notes that both hubs are only able to output a 60Hz signal to one 4K display, while the other will be limited to 30Hz. But it’s more convenient than the kinds of existing workarounds outlined in this guide from MacWorld,...

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VanMoof’s new V e-bike is its fastest ever

Rendering of the VanMoof V, the company’s first fast e-bike. | Image: VanMoof

Fast and furious

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Small satellite launcher Astra identifies cause behind strange sideways rocket launch

Astra’s 3.2 rocket taking off from Kodiak, Alaska | Image: Astra/John Kraus

Small satellite launcher Astra says it has identified the culprit behind its bizarre launch failure in August, which caused the company’s rocket to hover sideways right after takeoff before briefly climbing into the sky. After implementing some design changes, Astra says it is ready to try again, with another launch attempt called LV0007 set as early as October 27th.

This will be Astra’s fifth attempt to reach orbit with one of its rockets, which primarily take off from Kodiak, Alaska. The company first tried to send its vehicle to orbit for a DARPA launch challenge in March 2020 but failed to get the rocket off the ground in time to meet the competition’s deadline. The vehicle then exploded on its launchpad a few weeks later. After...

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Tech tools for teaching in a classroom during a pandemic

The Chromecast with Google TV makes it easy to play content in front of a class without occupying your laptop. | Photo by Philip Berne for The Verge

The last year of lockdown and learning from home was undoubtedly the most challenging year for teachers in a generation. Now that students are returning to class, we face new challenges. Students hide behind their masks. Understaffing and last-minute changes require us to be more flexible. The transition from “going to school” in pajamas on the couch to physically going to school is exhausting, and engagement is low. Frankly, it’s quiet. Too quiet.

Here are some of my favorite tools that I’ve purchased this year to overcome the COVID doldrums. If you are a teacher with some classroom funds to spend, or if you know teachers who could use a tech boost, this is what I recommend.

Every time a student gives an impassioned answer and I have...

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Chevy Bolt recall will be paid for by battery supplier LG Electronics, GM says

Photo by Andrew Liptak / The Verge

General Motors and LG Electronics have struck a deal in which the South Korean battery maker will pay for all the costs associated with the massive Chevy Bolt recall, the companies announced.

Last August, GM announced that it was recalling all Chevy Bolts made after 2017, including the new versions released earlier this year, after multiple fires in the electric vehicle’s battery packs were found to have been caused by defects in the LG Chem cells found inside.

As part of the agreement, LG will reimburse GM for the “costs and expenses” associated with the recall, which the automaker estimates will “offset $1.9 billion of $2.0 billion in charges associated with the recalls.” It’s a better deal than originally expected, with GM stating...

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Samsung’s new 980 Pro SSD for the PS5 brings its own heatsink

Samsung has created a new 980 Pro SSD model designed for Sony’s PlayStation 5. The SSD includes a heatsink specifically designed to fit inside the M.2 SSD storage expansion slot inside the PS5. Samsung is releasing this new 980 Pro SSD model on October 29th, priced at $249.99 for the 1TB version or $449.99 for the 2TB model.

The built-in heatsink is designed to keep temperatures low enough to deliver sustained speeds, with sequential read speeds of up to 7,000MB/s and sequential write speeds up to 5,100MB/s. Not many games take advantage of such speeds on the PS5 just yet — Samsung’s 980 Pro specs are way above the 5,500MB/s read speeds that Sony recommends.

This new 980 Pro model will sit neatly inside the PS5’s M.2 SSD expansion slot

S...

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How Amazon runs Alexa, with Dave Limp

Photo Illustration by Grayson Blackmon / The Verge

The senior vice president of devices and services gets into the weeds

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